


Lessons in Navigation

by Siddal



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Dialogue, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Gen, Gray Jedi, emo space wizard meets OG emo space wizard, force rambling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 16:21:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20530946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siddal/pseuds/Siddal
Summary: Kylo Ren meets the man he's been calling for for years. But the man has grown beyond what Ren admired him for.orAnakin's like "I don't sing my old songs anymore."





	Lessons in Navigation

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive the dumb jokes in my tags and summary. This is a serious fic, I swear.

Kylo Ren sat, slouched and scowling in his quarters. Alone after another exhausting day. Wondering if he's using all his energy on the right things. He'd thought the height of his fury ensured his conviction. Now that he's calmed and the tasks expected of the Supreme Leader came flowing in - the tedious, the irritating, the dirty and the downright immoral; the doubt was setting in. How was his cause different from that of the Jedi and Sith he wanted to leave behind. Did he simply live to be contrary to them, to his family's ambiguous legacy.

He didn't think that tonight would be the night that he'd find clarity and he certainly didn't expect someone to offer help in finding it.

The air seemed to shift in the room. An unnatural silence set in. And he found himself briefly wishing to find a skinny angry woman being the cause of it. He shook away the thought, stood and searched his quarters.

"Show yourself! Who…"

He is frozen for a moment, finding a man in old fashioned robes standing before him. It didn't take much more than one look, he recognized the man in seconds.

"Grandfather?"

"Got it in one. Ben or do you prefer Kylo?"

Anakin stood before him very unlike the large, stoic image of Vader he'd had in his mind. Without the cloak and armor, he had Luke's coloring, the length of his hair similar to Kylo's own, with Leia's smart smirk. It was unnerving.

"Why are you here? Why now, after years of calling for you?" Kylo asked in shaky anger.

"You never had a true connection to me." Anakin shrugged "In your years adrift, I thought my children could give better guidance."

"You were wrong!" Kylo shouted.

Anakin smiled apologetically, much to Kylo's chagrin.

"Yes. I, on occasion, am wrong. Particularly in my last days. And like then, it took Luke Skywalker to give me clarity."

Kylo took a breath to regain some control of his temper.

"He sent you? I won’t turn if that’s what you’re here for."

"And which way do you think I want you to turn? You have doubts and I am here to tell you that you’re on the right path, you just need to regain sight of your heading." Anakin continues to infuriate with his matter-of-fact tone.

"What path?"

"Straight on. I know the burden you carry. It feels like your actions will ripple through out the galaxy because they will. You have my blood and you carry in you the same purpose."

Kylo shook his head.

"I will not have another strange mystical creature who’s never here, give me orders in the guise that it’s my purpose or mission or calling…Call it whatever you like. I don’t want it."

Anakin calls forth a more recognizable yet startling fury.

"I am not Snoke, boy. You asked for my guidance."

Kylo mustered up his courage and said "Well, you’re too late." before turning away from the once Dark Lord.

"Does that mean that you don’t want to hear it? What you are."

Kylo scoffs and mockingly says "The chosen one?"

Suddenly, Anakin was closer to him, the voice sounding as if it came from right behind his ears.

"You are the sentinel of balance, and when it is threatened, you are its agent."

Turning to face the man again, he finds him a fair distance away.

"Balance? That old force tale. Who’s to say what it even is?"

Anakin nods with a smirk on his lips once more.

"True. The Sith and the Jedi have preached it to their disciples all throughout time, but in truth what they preached was supremacy. They got it wrong. The truth is in the word. Balance. Who’s to say what it is? I questioned the rigid teachings of the Jedi. Luke understood that the force will reach balance with the Jedi and Sith in equal measure or with neither of them at all. It is with the vanity of the Jedi and the Sith, that balance is lost. It is in our losing that balance is lost."

Kylo frowns at this. "And this isn’t vanity? The sentinel of balance."

"It is because we question that we…are."

"So, you’re telling me I’ll just know what it is? What if I tell you I want to decimate every last molecule of the Resistance in this galaxy? Is that balance? Or is it disbanding the First Order and giving up every last bit of power I have?"

"You’re testing me. Good. But I have been tested as has your uncle. It is you who is being tested now."

Losing patience, Kylo shouts "Enough riddles!"

"All I have are riddles. The answers have been passed on to you. But maybe you’ll have an easier time finding them by knowing how those who came before you failed." Anakin offered.

Receiving no violent reaction, he continues.

"I was on the brink of it before I turned, but got it wrong by going Dark. Your mother had it in her but her reach wasn’t enough without the force. Luke succeeded when he defeated Sidious and brought me back." Anakin says almost triumphantly.

"And then failed by starting his academy for the Light side." Kylo counters his statement.

"Perhaps. Or perhaps the Dark was already rising…" Anakin starts, looking to Kylo expectantly.

"And the force needed Light to meet it?" Kylo frowns, struck by a memory. "Snoke said this about me and Rey."

"Yes. You see, there is wisdom in both sides. It’s when force users think they are done learning, that we make our mistakes. I thought the Dark was the answer. Luke thought Light was the answer. There is no one answer."

"But what was the question?"

"Yes. Now, you’re asking the right questions."

"But not THE question!"

"Perhaps 'question' isn’t the word for it. Problem? Obstacle?"

"I don’t care what you'd call it, what was it?"

Sadness colors Anakin's face suddenly.

"For me, it was losing Padme."

"Padme? My grandmother."

"Yes. But before that, I questioned the Jedi’s teachings because it separated me from my mother. The council frowned upon my closeness to my Master; in manner, in understanding and in age. Then their rules forbid me from marrying Padme. But then I married her and I found an inkling of balance in disobedience."

"And the problem?"

"I saw it coming, I don’t even know if it was a premonition or a trick. But it brought about imbalance. Perhaps the imbalance that would push me to take what I learned from the Jedi and go further into something more. Perhaps, she wasn’t going to die at all. Perhaps, whatever came to be, should not have been within my power to prevent. Whatever it was, I was meant to find it myself. But I didn’t search for it. I thought my options were to give her up for the Light side or prevent her death by becoming strong in the Dark. One or the other. In the end I was strong, with power and influence I would hold for years to come. But it was because of me that she died. Whatever it was, her grief, my violence, my new Master’s powers; I lost sight of my heading and she died."

Kylo took in his grandfather's regret, and feared for something similar coming for him.

"And if you were wrong, and your choices weren’t just one or the other, what would have been the balanced choice?"

"I told you I never found it. That’s your question to answer now."

"So, I’m supposed to find out what saves her?"

"No!" Anakin exclaims disappointedly. "Let’s try this again. Luke brought about balance in saving me. Leia was close before him, in fighting the Empire but again, she lacked reach. But she fought because of her values, yes? But at the core of it, for her family, for her people."

Kylo frowns, rolls his eyes and shakes his head dismissively.

"Love. You’re telling me love is balance."

"No!" Anakin exclaims again.

"It is your heading and you can’t correct your course without it. The Jedi and the Sith can’t agree on this one thing. It eludes them. The Jedi think love is selfish and leads to possessiveness, fear and anger. The Sith see it as self_less_, leading one to compassion, and goes against one’s own ambitions, and against the belief that desire is simply carnal."

"So, how did Luke fail? He had everything. The love of my parents. Chewbacca. The galaxy. And he answered their love with his own, with his heroics."

"He failed you. He was afraid you would threaten what he’d fought for, what he loved. He lost his heading. In his moment of weakness, when he raised his weapon against you, he forgot that he was also fighting for you."

Kylo turned away again, knowing he can't hide the pain of betrayal from the ghost in his presence, but trying anyway.

"Well, then I have no heading." Kylo concludes.

"Don’t you?" Anakin asks knowingly. "There’s nothing you would like to protect. No one to defend or avenge. No one to please, even."

Kylo shakes his head.

"What about hate?"

"I think you’ll find, I hate plenty."

"Do you? Because dislike is one thing; but you can’t truly hate something unless it’s transgressed against something you loved."

He thinks of those who've been pierced by the light of his saber. Familiar and unfamiliar faces. Burning temples. Exploding ships. Among them all, dark hair, furious brows, bound arms, and calloused yet delicate fingers in the glow of a blue saber.

"Then, I guess I love myself." Kylo says unconvincingly.

"If that were true, you wouldn’t be tearing yourself apart like you're doing now. So, Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, what have you transgressed against?"

And with that, the ghost leaves him with more questions than he had before. But maybe this time, they were the right questions.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are appreciated.


End file.
